Breakfast with Santa benefits Relay for Life at Edwardsville school

Annual event part of school’s Relay for Life

Scott Cousins, scousins@thetelegraph.com

Published
8:50 pm CST, Sunday, December 9, 2018

Kennedy Pinkas, 17 months, and her mother, Meghan Pinkas, of Glen Carbon, look over Santa at Woodland Elementary Schools annual Breakfast with Santa, held Saturday. The event, a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life program, brings in about 700 children who get breakfast, a chance to visit with Santa, and participate in crafts and other activities.

Kennedy Pinkas, 17 months, and her mother, Meghan Pinkas, of Glen Carbon, look over Santa at Woodland Elementary Schools annual Breakfast with Santa, held Saturday. The event, a fundraiser for the American

Kennedy Pinkas, 17 months, and her mother, Meghan Pinkas, of Glen Carbon, look over Santa at Woodland Elementary Schools annual Breakfast with Santa, held Saturday. The event, a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life program, brings in about 700 children who get breakfast, a chance to visit with Santa, and participate in crafts and other activities.

Kennedy Pinkas, 17 months, and her mother, Meghan Pinkas, of Glen Carbon, look over Santa at Woodland Elementary Schools annual Breakfast with Santa, held Saturday. The event, a fundraiser for the American

EDWARDSVILLE — Aidon Cook swore he has been nice this year, Jenia Wilson put way too many sprinkles on her Christmas cookie, and Maia Sweezey-Errar really liked the sausages.

Add in Kris Kringle and some crafts, and the annual Breakfast with Santa at Woodland Elementary School in Edwardsville gives a lot of children happy Christmas memories, and helps a lot of other people.

The breakfast, which has about 700 people registered each year, is part of the school’s American Cancer Society Relay for Life program.

“There are events throughout the building,” said Principal Tara Fox.

They have been doing it for “seven or eight years.”

The program takes about 40 volunteers, most of them faculty and staff, or family members, although some high school students also help.

“Several years back we had a teacher who had cancer, so it became a much bigger response and a much bigger commitment from all of us,” Fox said. “It’s a passion of our staff. Our building has actually been the top school in the area, we raise about $10,000 annually.

They picked a Breakfast with Santa as their main fundraiser to fill a holiday need in the community.

“We found in the community that there used to be different Breakfasts with Santa, then they all fell away,” she said.

Some people would travel as far as Belleville to participate in programs, so they decided to do one locally and make it less expensive.

While some other groups have started doing it again, she said it was still going strong.

“It’s neat for the kids,” said parent Matt Holmes, of Glen Carbon. “It helps get them into the Christmas spirit. It’s for a good cause, the American Cancer Society, and the kids get to get together outside of school and do something fun.”

Jenia Wilson and her brother, Tyler, were making cookies. While Tyler was carefully placing his sprinkles, Jenia was a little more enthusiastic, with predictable results.

“I was going to pick up and eat my cookie, but all of the sprinkles fell off,” she said. “It was really good, the frosting was the best.”

She was able to get a small bag for her sprinkles, and planned to “shove them in my face” later.

In the Santa letter writing room, Maia Sweezey-Errar was drawing a picture of Santa Claus.

“I really like it,” she said. “I like doing art and I do classes today and we’re going to go after this. I think it’s cool for kids to play and have fun and eat breakfast here. I really like the sausages.”

Her mother, Kendra Sweezey-Errar, brought Maia and her brother, Kai, because she enjoys “seeing smiles on my kids’ faces.